Writing in the The Florida Times-Union, reporter Jeremy Cox used public records requests to find that a kidney transplant program at a local safety net hospital had been at risk of closure by federal regulators prior to its abrupt closure in January. It had “failed to meet six of 12 federal standards.”
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Furthermore, Cox writes, the records revealed “that hospital officials intentionally misled local media outlets about the full extent of the program’s breakdown. In a memo to Shands spokesman Dan Leveton about how to address the media, Steven Blumberg, vice president of planning and business development, said, ‘If asked, we will say that a program with low volumes is not economical to operate and that quality can be ensured with higher volumes.’” That statement, of course, makes no mention of looming federal intervention or a failure to meet basic quality standards.
Cox’s writeup should serve local reporters well as a sort of “anatomy of a failed transplant program,” as he delves into the regulatory process and exactly where the hospital went wrong.
For those of you who were, like myself, unfamiliar with the institution, Cox writes that “Shands is run by a private not-for-profit company, but it is widely seen as Northeast Florida’s safety-net hospital. The city of Jacksonville gives the facility about $23 million a year to care for the city’s poor, and it gets millions more from the state.”
